Hello and welcome to the monthly newsletter from the Oxford Martin School Programme on the Future of Cooling.
The newsletter covers the latest cooling news and research updates: please do subscribe to receive them. You can see previous editions here.
Please let me know if there is something you’d like see featured in the newsletter, or if you have other comments or suggestions.
Helen Gavin
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 The hottest decade on record
As wildfires rage across Australia, the end of 2019 concludes a decade of exceptional global heat, retreating ice, and record sea levels driven by greenhouse gases from human activities.
The World Meteorological Organization has issued its Provisional Statement on the State of the Global Climate for 2019, saying that average temperatures for the five-year (2015-2019) and ten-year (2010-2019) periods are almost certain to be the highest on record, with 2019 on course to be the second or third warmest year on record.
The global average temperature in 2019 (January to October) was about 1.1 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial period. This has caused WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas to warn that, “If we do not take urgent climate action now, then we are heading for a temperature increase of more than 3°C by the end of the century, with ever more harmful impacts on human wellbeing...We are nowhere near on track to meet the Paris Agreement target.”
Concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have continued to rise beyond the record level of 407.8 parts per million in 2018 with melting ice sheets accelerating sea level rise. On a day-to-day basis, the impacts of climate change play out with extreme weather, such as heatwaves, floods and cyclones, becoming regular occurrences, internally displacing more than 10 million people just between January and June 2019.
The findings were released during the COP25 assembly in Madrid in early December, where the UN secretary general, António Guterres, warned that though the technology and economic means to fight climate chaos were available, political will was lacking. Despite the compelling evidence, the outcome of the convention was extremely disappointing, likened to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. COP25, five years after the world's first universal climate treaty, was intended to be a “mopping-up” session to finish guidelines for carbon markets, thus completing the Paris Agreement rulebook. However, countries did not agree on this and many other outcomes, with rules for a global carbon trading system and a system to channel new finance to countries facing the impacts of climate change delayed for a year.
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How big is the total potential demand for air conditioning?
In a new paper, researchers at the Energy Institute at the University of California, assess the potential of air conditioning demand, ranking 219 countries and 1,692 cities.
The United States alone, currently uses 400 terawatt-hours of electricity annually just for air conditioning, about 1.5% of all the electricity consumed on the planet.
However, due to the increases in extreme temperatures, and growing economies, more and more people in other countries are buying air conditioners. The researchers computed annual cooling degree days (CDDs) for a 5km by 5km grid of the world to measure cooling demand, and found areas of the planet with 3,000+ and even 4,000+ CDDs annually, along a horizontal band passing through Northern Africa, the Middle East, and Southern Asia. The researchers then multiplied CDDs by population to get a measure of the “total CDD exposure” and “air conditioning potential”.
The researchers found that 8 countries could use more air conditioning than the United States in the future: India, China, Indonesia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Brazil, Bangladesh, and the Philippines.
India has 28% of the total global CDD exposure, more than 14 times that for the United States; the city of Mumbai alone has the exposure equal to 25% of the entire United States.
All of these countries have a GDP of less than US$10,000 per person, but some are considered to be middle-income countries, and household incomes are rising. This means that these countries may adopt air conditioning in large volumes very soon.
However, while it is inevitable that more air conditioning will be used as people are able to afford it, there is much we can do to lessen the climate impact of increased demand, from the refrigerant chemicals used, to where and how the electricity is sourced.
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 Goodbye R-404a!
The refrigerant gas R404A has been ubiquitous in the EU refrigeration industry for some years. It has been widely used across Europe for stationary refrigeration since the mid-1990s, and is the most widely used gas in commercial refrigeration systems, such as those used in supermarkets.
It was introduced to replace CFCs, but is now being phased out under the EU F-gas regulations. These ban HFCs with a Global Warming Potential (GWP) above 2,500 in all new commercial refrigeration equipment placed on the EU market after January 1st 2020. A GWP of 2,500 means that the gas traps 2,500 times as much heat per kilogram as carbon dioxide does, over 100 years.
As R404A has a GWP of 3,922 it has been subject to phase out over the past few years, to comply with the ruling that it can no longer be used in a service application from 31 December 2019, nor be in any new cooling and refrigeration systems from 1st January 2020.
Hello new energy efficient, low GWP alternatives such as RS-50 or R455A! The critical aspect of efficiency was picked up in RAC Magazine’s “F Gas question Time” event. As well as saying goodbye to R-404a, participants expressed concerns over the energy demands of coolants that have lower global warming potential (GWP).
There is little benefit of using a coolant with a lower GWP if it requires more energy to work. A move towards lower GWP products must be matched by efficient cooling technologies that require less energy, as otherwise this would negate the benefits.
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K-CEP’s partner Alto Data Analytics has performed some interesting analysis on social media conversations and content, related to Efficient, Clean Cooling, during summer 2019. Their aim was to explore levels of public digital debate in the English language in 128 countries, identify digital influencers (from individuals to organizations) and highlight key topics and conversations.
The above digital cloud includes the top 4 themes and 250 of the most frequent keywords related to Efficient, Clean Cooling, representing 19.1k results, equivalent to 98% of the total.
They found that:
- Conversations and themes were dominated by Greta Thunberg
- The scale of conversations and digital activity related to Efficient, Clean Cooling was very small; just 10% compared to conversations linked to Energy Efficiency
- Industry and businesses related to heating, ventilation and cooling dominated the most frequently shared key words connected to Efficient, Clean Cooling
- The conversation about ‘Efficient, Clean Cooling’ (19k sources) is miles away from ‘Energy Efficient & Clean cooling’ (208k sources)
- Greta Thunberg came out as the biggest influencer. CNN were also a key influencer.
- Twitter was the most popular digital platform.
Based on their research, Alto Data Analytics recomend the following actions to raise awareness for clean efficient cooling, and helping everyone to understand the impacts and solutions include the following:
 Reduce the reliance on experts and specialists - UN, World Bank and climate groups – by actively seeking other voices- Work with Greta directly to help reach a wider audience and ask her to mention practical action points in her public engagements and digital activity
- Connect with businesses that are driving heating, ventilation and cooling themes.
- Cultivate existing media interest in Climate-Friendly Cooling in East Africa and India
- Boost Global South engagement and activity by creating opportunities to build up on Indian and African voices. Seek out successful south stories to pitch to global media outlets.
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The Cooling Imperative...
...is a new report by the Economist Intelligence Unit, which states that the market for cooling is larger than that for PV panels, wind turbines and lithium batteries, and driven by climate change, urbanisation and income growth. The report estimates that 4.8 billion new units of cooling equipment will be sold globally between now and 2030, with a total market value of up to US$170bn in 2030. China, the US and India will be by far the three largest markets, accounting for 49% of total sales in 2030.
Demand for cooling must be met if countries are to meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, given that cooling devices are a substantial and growing contributor to climate change, K-CEP commissioned this report to map the transition to more efficient, climate-friendly cooling by 2030.
Scaling up access to cooling without exacerbating current levels of emissions, means transitioning to more efficient climate-friendly models using the four key principles:
- Reduce the need for cooling through better building design and behaviour change
- Shift to forms of cooling with lower emissions e.g. by replacing HFCs with climate-friendly alternatives
- Improve efficiency using new technologies and harnessing waste thermal resources
- Protect those most vulnerable to a lack of cooling e.g. through more inclusive business models.
In 2018, domestic and residential cooling accounted for 62% of total cooling demand, placing the onus on real estate developers and households to act urgently. However, demand is growing most quickly among commercial and industrial cooling users – from hotels to data centre operators - and so this sector must take steps to transition to more efficient, climate-friendly cooling as they will play a growing role.
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Thanks for reading and have a happy New Year!
Helen Gavin
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